


Where You Hang Your Bow

by Tassos



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Aftermath of a Case, Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, Season/Series 02, Slice of Life, Team, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because you almost die, doesn't mean life stops moving forward. After a tough couple weeks, the Team Arrow trio aren't sleeping well, and a small time drug dealer is the latest thorn in their side. For Felicity, Digg, and Oliver, it's not so much recovering as recalibrating how they fit into Oliver's mission and with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where You Hang Your Bow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eli/gifts).



> Spoilers for all aired episodes. Nothing major, mostly small references and lingering emotional fallout.
> 
> I'm not really sure where this story came from, but here it is. Happy Yuletide!

_"I don't see you in here much anymore." Carly leaned over and refilled Digg's coffee. He gave her a thankful smile, glancing around the diner. It was late but not that late, and half of the tables were filled with teenagers goofing off._

_"Not that long," he said. "We were in here last week."_

_"That was your friend picking up take-out," Carly gave him the side-eye. "It's been at least a month since you've so much as sat down at a table. And if you haven't been eating here, I fear what you've been eating at home."_

_Had it been that long? Digg didn't believe it, but a week ago they'd still been recovering from Cyrus, and the week before had been dealing with Cyrus, and before that the Count, and … yeah. It had been a while._

_He sat back and sighed. The last few weeks had been exhausting. Digg felt like all he'd been doing lately was driving back and forth between Queen Consolidated and the foundry. He was sure he'd been at his apartment in between to sleep, but on the rare night he wasn't needed anywhere it was too quiet and it made him itchy to get out._

_"What's this?" Carly slid into the seat across from him and tugged the book he'd been paging through from his hands. "Justifiable Force: The Practical Guide to the Law of Self-Defense," she read the cover and raised her eyebrows at him. "Something I should know about? Is Oliver okay?"_

_"He's fine." As fine as Oliver ever was, anyway. "I'm just . . . Reading up."_

_But the expression on Carly's face was worried, and she was biting her lip like she wanted to say something. A month ago she probably would have, Digg thought as the silence dragged on. But they'd had this fight already. And somewhere in there she'd stopped being the person he thought of first to tell about what was going on in his life._

_"Well, be careful out there," she finally said. She slid the book back and let her fingers brush his. "A don't be a stranger. We miss you."_

_Digg squeezed her hand. "Okay." Even as he spoke the words, he wasn't sure whether or not he was making another promise that he couldn't keep._

* * *

Felicity's eyes drifted down to the bottom of the report, barely breathing when she read the conclusions. Vertigo. The super special deadly recipe.

She scrolled back up to the top of the medical examiner's report, at the photo of the young man lying dead on the autopsy slab. He was young, 19 years-old, gaunt and pale, track marks on his elbows. Like the other four reports that Felicity's crawlers had flagged, he had died in the last week -- well after the Count had taken flight out of the top floor window of Queen Consolidated, courtesy of Oliver's arrows to his chest.

It shouldn't have been possible. Vertigo was supposed to be gone. Felicity switched her attention to the left-hand screen where the Starling City Health Department report detailed all the measures they'd taken to make sure the victims of the Count's dosing were contacted and given the antiserum. 

"What are you still doing here?"

Felicity jumped, her head whipping around to glare at John, while her heart tried to escape her chest. "Aren't you supposed to make noise?"

"I did," said John, coming to look over her shoulder. "New threat?" 

"Old threat." She pointed at the M.E.'s report.

John squinted a little as he read the small print. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know. Different distributor, maybe?" Felicity sighed. "I'm thinking this guy didn't get a flu shot."

"So the Count loaded up the dealers before going public." John sighed, too, arms crossing over his chest. "I was really hoping to be done with this one."

"Me too," Felicity said, softly. She still had phantom dreams of the twin needles pressing against her neck.

"Hey," John put his hand on her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She sucked in a breath and smiled up at him. "Yeah. I'm good. Just, you know."

"Yeah," John squeezed gently. "Maybe, you should go home. Get some rest. It's late."

"No, I want to see if I can find their dealer," Felicity said, turning back to her screens and calling up the city's closed circuit cameras. What she was doing was so very illegal, and sometimes she thought it should bother her more. But what kept her up at night were nightmares about the Count stroking her hair, not whether Officer Lance would show up on her doorstep. 

"You'll let me know when you find something?"

"Of course. You and Oliver will be the first to know."

"Maybe we don't need to bother Oliver with this one," said John, surprising her. "At least not until after this week's board meeting." He made a face that immediately had Felicity spinning around again, the drug dealer put on the back burner.

"Why? What's up? Oliver stormed out before I could ask and I was too busy blocking Isabel from following to chase after him."

"From how little he said I gathered it was pretty serious," said John with a twisted smile. "He told me it was no big deal. Not to worry."

"Of course he did." Felicity huffed and sat back in her chair. She knew exactly the expression Oliver had on his face when he said it -- chin up, then coming down, not hint that anything was wrong with the world with how still he held himself. Like Queen Consolidated wasn't struggling to hold itself together. 

John snorted and shared a knowing look with her. "All right. I'm going to grab something to eat. You need anything?"

"I ate." Felicity pointed at the power bar wrappers and the cup of ramen she'd brought from the vending machine at work. Dinner of champions. "Seriously. I'm good," she said when John raised a skeptical eyebrow. 

Felicity gave him her best reassuring smile. He really didn't need to worry. She would get sucked into tracking down the scumbags, and when she got home she'd be too tired to dream. It wasn't a perfect solution since she had to be up early for her second job, but it had worked so far.

* * *

_A thin caress, barely there, a ghost of presence on her skin. Her muscles are locked, trembling as she tries to keep perfectly still, pull away, press into the wall, disappear._

_It's that moment of adrenaline and mortality, the moment when death rides on her shoulders. This is it. This time, it's for real. This moment. This breath. That's all she can focus on. All she can hear, her own heartbeat, his. The stench of sweat and anti-septic._

_The light touch along her neck, tapping, tapping, but not breaking skin, not yet. Please God, not yet, a little longer. Another breath, another moment. Just one._

_She doesn't dare close her eyes. Can't. Her shoulders tensed into knots, her whole being frozen, du rigeur, like she's already a corpse. She thinks it will be cold, but the memory is the hot gush of blood. Knuckles painted by red rivulets, running like rainwater. Away, away, always away, away where she can't follow._

_This is it. This time, it's for real. This moment. This last breath._

_That's when she wakes up._

* * *

Oliver was beginning to suspect Felicity was living at the foundry. She was always there when he arrived. Even when he and Digg left work before her, she somehow still got there first, even on the rare days when they didn't have to stop at the house or dinner or any of the other obligations that tied up Oliver's ever vanishing time.

Tonight he'd gone out to dinner with his mother and Thea. It had be refreshing and terrible at the same time. It was the first time he'd felt like they'd really had a _family_ night since Mom's acquittal. But at the same time, he could still see both of them searching for someone he wasn't anymore. Oliver had felt himself watching dinner as if he was outside of his own body, an observer to his own life even as he lived it. The worst part was, he wanted to be the person he had been, for them, just for the night.

They'd gotten home late, and, unable to sleep, he'd snuck out the window like a teenager.

Felicity turned when he tapped the table behind her, announcing that she wasn't alone. She should really turn the computer monitors around so she faced the door.

"Hey," she said, glancing at the clock on the monitor and frowning. "What are you doing here this late?"

Oliver shook his head and threw the question back at her. "What are _you_ doing here so late?" She had about a dozen windows open on her screens, a bunch of reports and a program scanning closed caption camera footage. Felicity pointed to one of the documents as he came over.

"There've been a string of drug overdoses in the last week or so. We're up to seven now. I'm trying to run down the dealer but it's been tricky." She sighed and reached back to rub her neck. "I didn't realized it was so late."

Oliver set a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. "You should get home. Diggle said you were here pretty late the other night, too."

"He worries too much. And so do you," said Felicity, turning back to her screens. "I need to get through this set of footage, and I haven't cross-referenced these last two victims with the others yet."

Oliver could feel the tension coiled in the knots in her shoulder. She was usually the one who had to tell him to take it easy. "Everything okay?"

"Yep. Everything's fine."

"Felicity." He turned her chair around so she had to look at him, whether she was happy about it or not.

"I'm handling it, all right?"

"Handling what?"

"This." Her hands went to the room around them -- the computers, the benches of equipment, Oliver's green leather hood. She sighed again, and when she finally looked at him, she looked a little lost. "Everything is… I go home and that feels like the crazy, wacked-out life, you know?"

"Yeah." Oliver knew exactly how that felt. "Are you sleeping?"

She let out a bitter huff of laughter and shook her head. "Do the nightmares ever stop?"

"I don't know," he said softly, honestly.

Felicity nodded again. "I guess that's why you're here, too," she said, and they sort of grinned at each other because it was true and sad at the same time.

"I needed to hit something."

"I guess that means I get to watch." Felicity brightened, then realized what she said and added hastily, "Not that I ever watch. Much. I'm going back to work now." She quickly spun back around, and Oliver shook his head, keeping his smile to himself, and left her to it.

He didn't push her about going home because he knew the need to lose yourself in work as a distraction. Felicity had been doing a lot of that since the attack on the Glades, always ready to give the Arrow a new target to make the neighborhood safer. Oliver sometimes worried about what he'd dragged her and Diggle into. He was broken, he knew that better than anyone, but that didn't mean he should be leading them down the same path. Sometimes he wondered if it was already too late.

While she worked, Oliver crossed to the weapons bench. His arrow supply was in pretty good shape. The city had been quiet in the last couple weeks, a welcome relief that was already starting to make him paranoid about what was coming next. Surely it had been too quiet. A drug dealer with poisoned product notwithstanding, Oliver sensed a storm brewing.

The workout area was spare, even with the improvements Digg had put in over the summer -- a floor mat, a proper dummy. Oliver let his hand trail over his bow but didn't pick it up. Tonight he needed to move.

He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt, dropping them on the edge of the mat. Starting with forms to warm up, Oliver tried to let the slow movements clear his mind. Breathe in, step, push, breathe out. Focus on breathing. That's what first her father, then Shado had taught him.

"As you breathe out, let your thoughts leave with your breath, until all that remains is the next move," she would have said. The island left no room for thoughts of the past or the future, only now. Only survival.

It wasn't that simple, not really, Oliver thought as he let his body flow like water from one move to the next. The complicated reminders of his time on Lian Yu that kept popping up in Starling City were reminder enough -- Shado limp on the ground, Slade's eyes when he saw her -- he didn't like thinking about his time there, but he found it impossible not to.

He grabbed the short staves next, one loosely griped in each hand as he faced the dummy. Whap, whap, whap, whump, he quickly fell into a pattern. The memory of trees was just out of sight, the sound of wood clacking against wood. The solid jar up his arm at each hit satisfied the gnawing restlessness better than the forms, and Oliver increased his pace, working up a sweat, his mind starting to finally drift.

"Aim to kill," Slade would have said. "It's dirty business, living, and it's you or him." The sudden memory of that early lesson didn't trip Oliver up, but only because of muscle memory. Oliver finished the set and stopped. The dummy didn't have eyes, but Oliver saw Slade's anyway, the way they had looked at Oliver next.

Behind him, Felicity tapped at her keyboard, the sound punctuated by the soft click of the mouse. Focus, Oliver told himself, trying to hear the sound of her breath to ground him to the here and now.

The salmon ladder was set up practically above her desk, where he'd be able to see her out of his peripheral vision, so when Oliver could breathe evenly again, he put away the staves and leapt up to the bar. Felicity's eyes were the only ones on him here. As he flexed his muscles, pulling himself up in preparation for jumping the bar up a notch, Oliver knew he was giving her a show. He allowed himself a moment to preen a little, but only for the split second before he jerked the bar and all his concentration was on holding his lower body stiff, the burn in his shoulders, and timing his movements. Up, up, up, up, up, up.

Her typing stopped, and at the top after Oliver pulled himself onto the rafter and he glanced down, she had her chin on her hand, watching him. She jerked her eyes away as soon as she saw him watching, but a moment later she looked up again. This time she smiled, and Oliver, chest heaving as he caught his breath, felt the air stick in his throat at the uncomplicated fact that she was there. Despite everything, she was with him in his crazy crusade and on this lonely night. He didn't deserve her.

He lay back against the beam and just breathed.

* * *

_"Ugh!" Thea came in and flopped down on Oliver's bed. He glanced over from where he sat at his desk. She wore a slim, off the shoulder black dress with plenty of sparkles that hung over her bare feet. It was one of what Oliver had come to think of one of her many management dresses._

_"Busy night?" he asked._

_"Why did I agree to run your club?"_

_"I seem to recall you telling me I couldn't have it back."_

_"Well, now I'm giving it back. It's all yours," said Thea, the way you'd ask someone if they wanted your unruly children. Oliver sympathized._

_"I'll trade you for the company," he said._

_"Ha. Fat chance."_

_Oliver hit save on the spreadsheet he'd been looking at, grateful for the break. It was past midnight and he hadn't understood what he'd been looking at before he'd sat down with the numbers after dinner._

_"So what happened tonight? And why aren't you at Roy's?"_

_"Roy's closing for me." Thea rolled her head to the side, a half smile on her face. "I kinda screamed at the kitchen crew, but I'm pretty sure I didn't fire anyone permanently."_

_"We have a kitchen crew?" Oliver didn't remember that in his original plans._

_Thea wasn't impressed by his ignorance. "Yes, Ollie, I have a kitchen at the club. It's hor d'ouvres and munchies mostly, nothing too high end because at the end of the night people want french fries and onion rings, but I carry french bread and brie for the early crowd from uptown."_

_"So what happened?" he asked again._

_"They've been eating my food without paying for it. And they don't take out the trash so it stinks."_

_"Definitely a firing offense," Oliver deadpanned._

_"Shut up. You don't have to deal with the health inspector."_

_Oliver didn't, it was true, he just had investors and board members who thought he was incompetent and, despite their loyalty to his parents, were ready to throw him under the bus. He glanced at his computer where the web browser was still open. In a fit of frustration he'd started googling all the terms he didn't understand from the spreadsheet and gone down a rabbit hole of badly written wikipedia pages with more equations than he thought could be associated with a company's bottom line._

_It'd given him a headache. And the overwhelming sense that he was going to lose the company because he was not cut out for sitting behind a desk and fighting cutthroat wars in a business suit with the thin veneer of civility._

_"Are you doing work over there?" Thea broke into his train of thought. She boggled comically when he nodded, then rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. Oliver waited patiently as she studied him, wondering not for the first time what she saw when looked at him._

_"You're really taking this CEO thing seriously," Thea finally said._

_"I don't really have a choice," he replied. Not anymore anyway. Keith Fowler had made it very clear that afternoon that skipping board meetings and walking out in the middle of the workday was either going to stop or Isabel would be moving into his office. Oliver didn't know how he would break it to his mother if that happened. It was another thing he didn't like thinking about it._

_"It's just weird, you know?" said Thea. "I mean, I know you've been super weird since you got back, but even last year you wouldn't touch the company at all."_

_"A lot's happened since then," Oliver said quietly._

_"Yeah," Thea agreed. Then with a teasing smile she added, "Do you ever have fun anymore?"_

_"Nope. Never." Oliver couldn't stop the smile from turning bitter. He didn't have time for fun anymore, a thought that had him looking at his phone to see if Felicity or Digg needed him. Reigning hell down on people who wanted to hurt the city was the closest he got to fun these days. But he didn't have any messages or missed calls._

_Thea didn't stay much longer, eventually getting up to shower and go to bed with a kiss to Oliver's forehead and an admonishment not to work too hard. Oliver just said, "Good night," and turned back to his computer when the door closed._

* * *

Digg let himself into the Queen mansion a quarter after seven and headed to the kitchen for coffee. Raisa always had a hot pot ready at the crack of dawn, and today she had banana muffins too.

"Take an extra for Oliver," she told him from the stove where she was frying eggs in the pan. "Boy didn't come down to dinner last night."

"I didn't think he usually did," Digg said, taking a second muffin.

Raisa pointed at the fridge with her elbow, giving Digg a serious look. "But usually I see he has rummaged through like mouse."

Oliver the mouse. Digg grinned and saluted before heading back to the foyer. Oliver wasn't long. He trotted down the stairs, buttoning his suit jacket, and while his suit was fine -- gray, tight around the shoulders -- Oliver's face was drawn and haggard.

"You look like hell." Digg offered him the muffin, which Oliver stared at for a second before accepting. It was gone before they reached the car.

"I had a lot of things to take care of last night," said Oliver. He slid into the passenger seat and stared straight ahead, ignoring the look Digg was giving him. "Just drive."

"Things for the company?"

"Yes."

"What?"

Oliver turned his head slightly, and Digg knew he didn't want to talk about it but tough shit. Mr. Secret Identity couldn't keep it all inside. When they reached the end of the Queen driveway, Digg stopped the car and stared back. It took a good minute, but after clenching his jaw a couple times, Oliver gave in.

"There some reorganization of subsidiaries and budgets that the board wants to do, all stuff that someone with an actual business degree would probably need the executive summary to figure out, only they give it to me as a dozen spreadsheets that I can't read and expect me to just rubber stamp it all."

"You think they're trying to manipulate you? Do you know who?"

"I don't know. It could be any of them." Oliver let out a breath and slumped in his seat. Not enough for most people to notice, but the way he dragged a hand over his face wasn't to wipe the sleet out of his eyes.

"That's your paranoia talking," Digg said as he eased the car forward and turned left onto the road that would take them to the highway.

"The Queen name isn't exactly well thought of at the moment. My mother's acquittal convinced pretty much no one."

It was true; the people didn't get their justice from the most visible symbol of the Undertaking. A lot of talk was going around about Oliver paying off the jury.

Digg didn't have a business degree either so the conversation dropped for the rest of the drive. They stopped to get coffee for Felicity two blocks from Queen Consolidated, and Digg thought it over while he waited for Oliver to run in.

"What about asking Walter for help again?" he asked when Oliver slid into the car again, but Oliver was already shaking his head. "Or Felicity?"

"She doesn't need to do my job too."

"I thought she already did your job."

"Ha ha." But the corner of Oliver's mouth twitched. 

A minute later, they were parked in Oliver's space and Oliver was gracefully juggling two coffees and his briefcase as usual, while Digg's body was telling him he wasn't 22 anymore.

Over the top of the car, Oliver frowned. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Just ran into a dumpster last night." Digg flexed his knee. It really wasn't anything, although from the scrutiny he was getting from Oliver, Oliver wasn't going to believe him until he got a chance to check him out for himself. Thankfully, even Oliver knew that this was not the time or place.

"Something up?" he asked.

Digg shook his head. "Felicity found a lead on that drug dealer. But it turned out to be just another punk who had bummed tainted vertigo from friends at a party. He gave me a name but didn't know anything else useful."

"Sounds like something we should check out tonight."

Digg gave him his best quelling look and walked around the car toward the elevator without limping. "Why don't you let me handle this while you get your issues straightened out with the board. I can handle a stupid punk kid." The elevator was waiting, and Digg held the door until Oliver finally moved. He didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue, either.

"Felicity getting you the address?"

"Yep."

"All right. But the second --"

Digg resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I have your phone number."

Felicity was waiting for them at the elevator on the top floor. It wasn't unusual; she had a program that told here when the car showed up on the security camera and sometimes watched them come up -- "Not stalking!" she'd said when she told them about it.

"For you." Oliver handed over her sickly-sweetened coffee. 

"Thank you. For you." Felicity handed Oliver a sheet of paper that said "Agenda" across the top. "Meeting starts in twenty. And for you." She held a tablet out to John with a photo of one Lucas Bowle, party supplier of vertigo, as well as his most recent address and his mother's address. This was good -- of course, John didn't really expect any less from Felicity's -- and he scrolled through, already planning out his approach. By the time he looked up, Felicity and Oliver had disappeared into the office, so he took the tablet with him to put some coffee on in the break room.

* * *

_It's not the fact that Deadshot is still out there, or not only because of that. It's the fact that Deadshot doesn't miss. It's the fact that he's a ghost. A bullet in the wind._

_He's standing in the center of a crowded ballroom. One of Oliver's black tie affairs, only the guests aren't the usual Starling City upper crust. Kids who are regulars at Verdant, police officers on the Glades beat, the homeless crowd that keeps the barrels burning on 15th St., his neighbor with the dog and his neighbor with the kids. Carly and A.J. are right smack in the middle, separated from him by half a dozen talking heads. Felicity and Oliver are in opposite corners of the room. All of them are targets._

_He tries to push through to Carly, but the more people he gets out of his way, the more block his path. He tries to push toward the walls and the room expands._

_When the shot comes, the mob in tuxedoes panics. He can't see Carly, he can't see Oliver, and he can't see Felicity. But blood spreads across the floor. No matter how hard he tries, he can't get to any of them -- too many scared people are in the way, screaming. But one of them is dead, or maybe all of them, and he's the one screaming._

_That's when he wakes up._

* * *

"Oh my God!" Felicity stood when she heard John coming down the stairs, but when she saw him with his coat tied around his shoulder, not the same color it started out as, she ran over. "You said you weren't hurt!" 

"It's nothing, a scratch." John tried to fend her off, but Felicity just grabbed his waving hand and tugged him to the mostly empty bench that was their de facto operating table at this point.

"You're bleeding out!"

"I'm not bleeding out."

"Sit." Felicity turned to find the first aid kit in the cabinet underneath, frantically pushing chemical bottles out of the way, because that was a lot of blood. A lot. John's shirt looked like it was tie-dyed. She couldn't deal with this. Scratch that, she thought, when she peeled up his coat-turned-bandage, she shouldn't deal with this.

The cut on the back of John's shoulder was several inches long and deep. His shirt was sticking to the edges. He needed stitches. Right away.

"It's not as bad as it looks," John tried to tell her as Felicity guided his hand to put pressure on the wound again. She should have been wearing gloves because now her hands were tacky and her phone was going to hate her forever. Why had she left her headset at work?

"It looks about as bad as it can get." She found Oliver's name and tapped the call button.

"I'm not shot," said John.

"Not even funny!" Felicity wagged her finger at him. "Oliver?" She said as soon as he picked up.

"Felicity, what is it?"

"You need to get down here. John's been hurt again. He's bleeding and he needs stitches or a hospital --"

"I don't need a hospital."

"-- Just get here as fast as you can."

"On my way. What happened?"

"I don't know. We'll find out when you get here." She hung up. "Don't give me that look," she told John. "Do you want to go to the hospital?"

John sighed, and for the first time since he showed up, he dropped the stoic soldier routine. It wasn't a good look on him. "No. Is there any Tylenol in there?"

Felicity found one of Oliver's workout towels and scrubbed her hands with the alcohol in the kit before she went rummaging for the painkillers. It wasn't until she tried opening the pill bottle that she realized her hands were shaking. Left-over adrenaline from seeing John hurt. That was all.

"I didn't sign up for this," she muttered.

"What?" John asked, vaguely.

"This. Blood and pain and playing Florence Nightingale. I barely eat a healthy diet. I don't know whether I should be freaking out or asking google what to do."

"Let's start with a clean bandage." John pointed at the towel she'd set beside the first aid kit.

Felicity grabbed it and let John do all the positioning. "I fix computers." She was babbling but she couldn't stop herself. "And I'm not bad with systems. And gadgets with tiny processors. Killed your hard drive? I can raise it from the dead. But this."

"Hey," John nudged her with his foot. "I'm all right. This? This is nothing. A scratch. And you're doing fine."

She wasn't, but she smiled and nodded for him anyway.

Oliver for once was not quiet when he got there sooner than traffic should have let him. "What happened?" were the first words out of his mouth. He didn't wait for Felicity to move out of his way before he was crowding close and peeking under the towel. "Did you clean this yet?" Oliver asked, pushing his sleeves up.

Felicity quietly inched out of his way and handed him the alcohol when he held out his hand. John sighed and braced himself; Oliver didn't even give him a warning before pouring.

"Ow, shit, fuck."

"What happened?" Oliver asked again. "Needle."

"I was just checking out that kid with the vertigo," John said. He turned his head away from the needle Oliver was sterilizing then threading. "Felicity got me his address. I was just going to talk to him."

"Alone?"

"He's a kid, Oliver."

"Diggle --"

"I went to his apartment, knocked on his door, and when he didn't answer, picked the lock to see if the drugs were there. They were, right out on the coffee table." John hissed when Oliver started stitching. Felicity winced, too, and couldn't watch.

"Then what happened?" Oliver prompted.

"Then the kid comes out of the bathroom, sick and high and attacks me. He was fast too, and I didn't want to shoot him. He knocked over a lamp and then stuck me with one of the ceramic shards. I got him down, called the police, but, I don't know that he'll make it."

John was matter-of-fact about it, but he kept his eyes on the far wall as he spoke. Oliver tied off another stitch, glancing over briefly. 

"None of the vertigo vials got on you, or in you --"

"No. They were all intact as far as I could tell." John reached into his pocket and pulled one out. "I left the rest for the police."

Felicity took the vial and set it on what she called the mad scientist bench, what with all the vials and test tubes and things. Chemistry? Not her thing either. Except for when it appeared in medical examiner reports, which it looked like she'd have to do again for Lucas Bowle. She hated this part of the job. Second job. She hated this part of her second job. She had thought she could handle it. In order to stop more violence they had to find it in the first place. That was how it worked. But lately . . . it was getting to be too much.

"You shouldn't have gone alone," Oliver said quietly.

"I had Felicity on the radio."

"And then you didn't tell me you were hurt!" Felicity protested. "The radio? It's two-way."

Oliver glanced at her, face closed off but intense when he turned back to John. Felicity almost regretted ratting him out, but then she still couldn't look at his wound, where Oliver was tying off the last stitch. His skin was ragged along its new seam. Just a little lower and it would have missed his shoulder blade and gone right through his back and into his chest.

"You didn't _tell_ her? What if--"

"I assessed the risks before I went in and made a decision!" John snapped. He pushed Oliver away and jumped off the table, as pissed off as Oliver. "I could handle it. I _did_ handle it. And you being there would only have gotten me a bandaid on that twenty minutes sooner."

"He could have had a gun or a partner," Oliver gestured toward her. "By the time, Felicity called me, you could have been drugged or --"

"Oliver, I am not some green stripe fresh out of basic. I know what I'm doing, and you have got to start trusting me to take care of things like this." John stabbed the index finger on his good hand at the ground.

"How can I trust you when you don't even tell me what you're doing?" Oliver demanded, his voice rising. "You ran out there without a plan, without back-up, and you come back wounded. What kind of trust am I supposed to get out of that? You were lucky, _lucky_ , it didn't go worse."

"Guys!" Felicity tried, but they didn't hear her.

"And you have got to stop assuming that everything I do needs your constant supervision," said John, just as angry as Oliver, leaning in to make his point. "You call us partners but you sure as hell don't act like we are."

"How can we be partners if you're dead?"

"Guys!"

"I didn't die!"

"But what if you do?" Oliver yelled. 

"Then I guess you're out one black driver who's too incompetent to talk to one stupid, drugged kid all by himself. Go get the Arrow to make sure he talks. He doesn't need anybody else. Better warn the next sidekick."

Oliver didn't answer; he froze. More than that, he looked like he'd been slapped, his usual expressionless mask cracking and sliding off his face to shatter on the floor. Beneath, was an expression Felicity was sure she had never seen before, not on Oliver, something young, and scared, and hurt. 

"Guys," Felicity said because it was on the tip of her tongue, but it came out a whisper. John already looked like he regretted his words, but he didn't drop the stubborn tilt to his chin or back away.

"If you don't trust me," John said to Oliver, nothing but exhaustion in his voice, "then what am I doing here?"

"John," Felicity began, but that was all it took for Oliver to shutdown again. He sidestepped them both, headed for the stairs.

* * *

_The office after hours was lonely, and Felicity always tried to get out of there as soon as she could. With no one else around and all the glass walls it felt like the perfect scene out of a horror movie and she had enough of that at her second job, thanks. But tonight she wanted to make sure Oliver had all the documents he might possibly need for tomorrow's board meeting, and making the handy cross-referenced quick lookup cheat sheet had taken her hours longer than she'd planned on._

_Felicity took back every disparaging thing she'd ever said about secretaries. Arranging someone else's life was a lot harder than it looked, and no one ever mentioned all the bullshit details that popped up fifty times a day that no one thought took anytime at all but in reality they ate away the day._

_That's why she was still there at eight-thirty, hungry and tired, and connecting her computer to every printer on the floor so she could get out of there sooner. Only one other office light was on on the executive floor, and Felicity did a double take when she walked by on her way to the far copy room._

_Isabel Rochev was still at her desk. She sat at her computer with perfect posture, papers spread out across the rest of her desk, including a legal pad covered in hadn-written notes. She looked up when Felicity stopped in surprise._

_"Yes?" She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and pulled off intimidating even seated behind a pile of work._

_"Sorry. I didn't realize you would still be here. Bent over your desk, I mean." Felicity's eyes widened. "I mean, working! Hard. Not bent over, because obviously you're not." Felicity forced herself to stop. "I'm going to the copy room."_

_"I can understand your surprise," said Isabel dryly. "Seeing an executive actually do the job they're paid to."_

_"Oliver --" Felicity started because she couldn't let that slide._

_But Isabel finished the sentence for her, every word calculated, "--has no idea what he's doing. Company culture starts with the CEO. How can he expect his employees to be committed to their jobs if he can't be bothered to show up to his?"_

_The condescension in her tone set Felicity's teeth on edge. From day one, Isabel had thought she could just walk in here and take Queen Consolidated. Felicity gave up any pretense of getting to the copy room, crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders. "Oliver takes this company very seriously."_

_"Really. Then why are you here prepping for the board meeting tomorrow instead of him? I'm not the only one who's noticed his lack of attention." Isabel's eyes raked Felicity up and down. "And you deserve better."_

_Felicity flushed, outraged, embarrassed, and surprised that Isabel would say that to her face. She knew what everyone thought they know about her and Oliver. But so far Felicity had been able to pretend that the gossip didn't exist._

_"You should find someone who actually cares about you to come home to," Isabel said, and Felicity had never had the urge to punch anyone as hard as she wanted to punch Isabel right now._

_"Listen, you don't know the first thing about me, or Oliver for that matter. So you can keep your opinions to yourself."_

_Felicity didn't remember the last time she spent a full night at her apartment, but honestly, she didn't miss it. She had Oliver, she had John, she had a purpose that was about more than churning out a profit. Even when it sucked, even when she was terrified that she was going to die or she waiting to hear that Oliver or John made it out okay. Even then, she wasn't alone. What did Isabel have that she thought she could tell Felicity how to live her life?_

_But her anger flashed and calmed into something closer to, but not quite pity, because Isabel was at the office, alone, unloved by her employees because she was cold and distant, no matter what good example she set by caring for nothing but a soulless corporate bottom line. What kind of life was that?_

* * *

Everything seemed much simpler from the roof of the foundry. Below, the last hard core dancers at Verdant pulsed to the disco lights, and Roy carried out the trash as if everything were still normal. In the distance, Oliver could just make out the lights of the Queen Consolidated building. He'd been going through spreadsheets again when Felicity called him. Tomorrow was the board meeting, and he felt like was waiting on the beach for the tsunami to overtake him.

How did everything spin so far out of control?

He didn't know how long he stood, balanced precariously on the ridge beam, but in his hurry he hadn't grabbed a jacket and the wind was picking up.

Digg's shirt was off and Felicity was taping a proper gauze bandage to his shoulder when Oliver came back inside. Both of them looked up when he stepped into the light. Felicity's mouth was set in a grim line, but her eyes were worried. Diggle just looked tired, all the fight drained away. Oliver let his eyes roam down over his chest, but other than a few scratches and the shoulder, Digg really was fine.

Oliver came over and motioned for Felicity to finish when she offered him the gauze. The three of them were quiet while she finished, and the silence settled around them expectantly. When Felicity finally set down the scissors, Oliver and Digg's eyes met. Oliver spoke first.

"I'm sorry," he started, trying to sort his feelings into words. It had taken him a long time to figure out how to make an apology, and each time still felt like walking blindfolded and barefoot through beach caves on a rising tide. "About what I said about not being able to trust you. I do." Oliver didn't break his gaze away from Digg's. He couldn't tell if Digg believed him or not, but trust wasn't the problem.

"I'm sorry I didn't wait for you or tell Felicity sooner about my shoulder." Diggle glanced at her, and from the tight smile she gave him, Oliver figured she'd already given him hell for that. "I wanted to cover you on this one," Digg went on. "You have that board meeting tomorrow, and I honestly didn't think it would escalate. I didn't think it through."

Oliver gave him a half smile. "No plan survives contact with the enemy," he said.

"No. I should know that better than anyone," said Digg, returning the smile with a huff of laughter.

Oliver would have left it there, all forgiven and easy between them again, but then Digg added, "I can't promise it won't get hurt again." And like that the irrational flash of panic that Oliver had been squashing since Felicity's phone call returned. Oliver breathed through it. Inhaled, exhaled.

"Oliver?" Felicity put her hand on his arm.

"We're in this together," Digg went on, his voice reluctant, like he didn't want to say the words. "And sometimes that means we get hurt."

"I know," Oliver said, getting a hold of himself and forcing a smile. "I know. And I know I have . . ."

"Issues and are a total control freak? We noticed," Felicity said kindly, her words teasing. 

"And we know you'd drop everything to come for us. That's why I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to need rescuing again," said Digg, looking down. "But you gotta let us carry our own weight, too. I know you trust us, but you have follow through on that. I can't just sit on the sidelines."

"And I can't lose you. Either of you," said Oliver, getting the words out through force of will because they needed to know. He'd lost too many people already who _didn't know_ how much they meant to him because he never told them. These two, who had followed him this far, who saw Oliver the way he was and stayed anyway, they deserved so much better from him.

"Same here," Felicity said. This time when she reached out to touch his arm, she slid her hand into his. Oliver returned her fierce grip.

* * *

_He's seen their bodies already. Broken from a fall, pale white from blood less, skeletal from sickness, brains splattered on the ground. The fall of Felicity's hair, the unnatural cant of Diggle's neck. Every way the could die, every way they've almost died, it leaves him breathless in his dreams. Makes him chase down whoever hurt them and destroy them._

_But it's not their dead bodies that make him break out in a sweat. It's afterward, when he comes to bury them, and crouching beside them, he turns them over. Their eyes fly open. Digg's are dark brown and full of disappointment -- Not good enough. Not strong enough. Not worthy. Felicity's are blue and betrayed -- You didn't come. You didn't choose. You didn't save us._

_He tries closing them, the pads of his fingers passing over their eyelids, but as soon as he moves his hand they open again, and their eyes follow him. No matter how many people he kills for them. No matter how many people he saves for them. They won't leave him be. And when he falls into death -- puts his bow aside and lets the faceless masked masses pull him under, just for the relief of setting down his burden, he wakes up in the afterlife to their judgement stare._

_That's when he wakes up._

* * *

Digg protested when Oliver wanted to take him home right away. 

"I'm hungry, not tired," he said, although he knew in an hour or so his shoulder was going to hit him like a ton of bricks. "I need to eat with the painkillers."

"You are such a liar about being tired," said Felicity when Digg groaned as he got to his feet.

"Well, maybe I don't want to go home alone right now," he said, trying to make it a joke. But by the way Felicity smiled and Oliver's eyes softened, they knew he wasn't really joking.

Oliver put a shoulder under his good arm. "Come on. I have an idea."

Five minutes and two staircases later, he had led them to a doorway behind the bar of the club. "Verdant has a kitchen?" Felicity said in disbelief when Oliver turned on the lights to an industrial strength kitchen.

"That's what I said." Oliver helped Digg over to the shiny stainless steel island counter. "Tommy added it when he took over managing the construction. We needed someplace to clean glasses," he gestured at the spray hose over one set of sinks next to a Hobart. "Thea put in a deep fryer and a range to make munchies for the late crowd."

Felicity already had her head stuck in the refrigerator, and soon she was pulling out ground meat and lettuce. "It's labeled as garnish," she said, reading the label on the lettuce. 

Oliver took down a frying pan and tossed the beef to Digg. "Think you can handle making patties?"

Digg grinned, and started looking around for the spice rack.

"I had no idea you could cook," Digg said a little while later as he watched Oliver flip the burgers, standing-by with the cheese. Felicity was opening cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, looking for plates.

Oliver glanced up, surprised at Digg's surprise. "All I'm doing is adding heat. You add enough heat, you can eat it without it killing you."

"I guess that's one way to look at it."

Oliver shrugged and turned his attention back to the burgers. "The first thing I ever killed was a bird," he said abruptly. "I didn't want to, but I was starving, so I did it. It was one of the best things I've ever eaten." 

He said it so matter-of-factly, so out of the blue -- Oliver never talked about the Island unless it was absolutely necessary, and even then he was closed-lip about it -- that Digg wasn't sure what to do with that. But Oliver only glanced over, his expression as bland as it ever got, and Digg simply nodded in acknowledgement. It seemed to be enough.

"Found them!" Felicity called, breaking the moment. Then Oliver asked for the cheese and the deep fryer dinged for the fries. The three of them bustled around each other, plates clattering as Oliver served up burgers, and Felicity was back in the refrigerator looking for pickles, and Digg salted the fries and put the ketchup on the counter. Oliver dragged in stools from the bar.

"Should we make a toast?" asked Felicity, holding up her martini glass of cranberry juice. It was almost four in the morning, after a fairly disastrous night. Digg had no idea what she would toast to, but he held up his glass of water anyway. Oliver raised his glass too.

"To surviving the night," said Felicity. "And a better day tomorrow."

"To a better tomorrow," Digg and Oliver echoed. 

They clinked their glasses together, and despite the ache in his shoulder, the upside-down hour, the utter madness of trying to save a city that didn't always want to be saved, there was no other place Digg would rather be.


End file.
